Field Trip
by Unexplained-Silence
Summary: G1, pre-war. Prowl gets to go on a field trip to the Iacon Enforcer Headquarters! Only...he doesn't want to. But he finds something that makes the trip worth it. Rated due to paranoia. Summary sucks.
1. Chapter 1

Well, this idea came to me when I was trying to think of something to write for NaNoWriMo. Now that NaNo's almost over, and I've pretty much put that on hold, I have a chance to publish this.

It's Thanksgiving. Just saying.

Transformers does not belong to me, however sad that may be. The franchise belongs to Hasbro.

Time schedule:  
Tik- second  
Breem- minute  
Joor- hour  
Cycle- day

* * *

He didn't want to be here. He _really _didn't want to be here. The entire thing was absolutely pointless. He didn't even want to be an Enforcer, for Primus's sake!

Yet here he was, on a transport, surrounded by his classmates, on the way to the Iaconian Enforcer headquarters. The field trip was funded by Prowl's academy, as a way for almost-adult mechs (and femmes) to see their chosen career up close and personally. Or, in Prowl's case, for undecided mechs (and femmes!) to get a taste of different professions and see if they like the taste of any.

The only upside for Prowl was that Bluestreak was here, too. At least he'd have someone to talk to, and he would be able to make sure that Blue wouldn't get into any unfortunate situations so that he wouldn't have to condole the mech later.

Prowl frowned at that thought. He glanced at the other Praxian and watched the excited mech talking animatedly to him. Or, as would be more accurate, _at_ him. Prowl had stopped listening in favor of brooding, and Bluestreak hadn't noticed or didn't care.

But he was fine. No one was interrupting him, and the transport was still a good 20 breems from Iacon.

Normally, Prowl was not one to succumb to moping, but given his situation it was perfectly acceptable. Or at least that's what he kept telling himself.

He wouldn't even be moping if it weren't for his creators. They were the ones who had forced him to go.

_"But Prowl, how do you know you don't want to be an Enforcer if you don't know what being an Enforcer is like?" _His creators had asked. It had been so nice to know that taking advantage of his rather unfortunate logic glitch wasn't above them.

_"But Prowl, it's in your best interest." _His carrier had said. _"Haven't you mentioned before that you want to visit Iacon?" _He did want to go to Iacon, but not to attend some boring-aft lecture about the duty and honor and responsibility of 'serving one's city.'

_"Besides," _his sire had thrown out all-too casually, _"Bluestreak will be going, and you know how he has a knack for getting into unpleasant situations." _

That's the real reason Prowl was there. He and Bluestreak weren't brothers, but they might as well have been. Bluestreak's carrier was Prowl's sire's sister, and they had grown up right next door to each other. They had attended the same sparkling academy, and they were attending the same academy now. Prowl would do anything to protect Bluestreak, including wasting a full cycle of valuable study time to make sure the gray Praxian didn't get into any trouble.

Frag them all.

He had an exam today. He really didn't want to miss it. The instructor had said he could make it up next cycle, but Prowl didn't like making things up. He liked getting things done on time, early if possible.

But no. Bluestreak just had to sign up for the trip, just had to decide that he really wanted to be an Enforcer, just had to inadvertently drag Prowl along against his will.

The transport jerked to a sudden stop, snapping Prowl back to attention. "Oh, good! We're here!" Amazingly enough, Bluestreak still found the energy to be excited after a good joor of talking to anyone who would listen. (Somewhere along the line he had noticed that Prowl wasn't paying attention, because he was currently talking to one of the twins-Sideswipe, Prowl thought.)

Another thirty breems later, they were all seated neatly in what looked to Prowl like an interrogation room stuffed with foldable chairs. There were only seven students on the trip, himself included, so the small room held them all.

The mech that had come out to greet them and act as their escort, a lean blue and white mech with a Towers accent, stood before a table, shuffling datapads and looking at the chronometer fixed on the wall. Waiting for someone.

After a breem or so of this the mech ex-vented and turned to smile at the assembly. "Well, it looks like my partner's running late, so I'll go ahead and start. Hi, my name is Mirage, and I work for the Iaconian Enforcer Headquarters. I'd just like to say how excited we are to have young mechs and femmes eager to get a closer look at the brave-" There it was, the first term of glorification. _Brave._ Prowl tried not to flick his doorwings as he mentally started a tally. He would need an exact number in order to prove his point to his Sire. "-bots who protect and serve-"

The door swooshed open, and in walked...

"Jazz?"

Perfection.

The mech was black and white, with a very stunning splash of blue. He had a brilliant blue visor covering his optics, and a small smirk at the look on Mirage's face. And the way he walked was simply...melodious.

Prowl didn't realized that he had jolted ram-rod straight. The entirety of his focus (which was of considerable size) was on this mech, this 'Jazz.'

But Bluestreak noticed. So did Sideswipe, judging from his small snicker. Sunstreaker couldn't care less, and the rest of the students didn't know Prowl well enough to read his reaction for what it was.

Bluestreak nudged the other Praxian's arm with his servo, but soon gave up his fruitless attempts at getting Prowl's attention.

"Sorry, 'Raj. Ironhide called for backup, and Hound was the only one around to answer. Seein' as I was just getting off patrol, I figured ya'd appreciate some help." Jazz reached the table and Mirage said something in reply. Prowl didn't hear what it was; his audios were filled with that incredibly sultry voice and that amazing accent.

Damn. Just...damn. This mech even spoke musically. Being from Praxus, Prowl knew how to appreciate fine art and music. And Jazz was both of these, living and breathing.

Whatever Mirage said, it made Jazz laugh, and Prowl immediately cursed himself for not listening. He wanted to know Jazz found humorous, because the sound had made Prowl's internals quiver with delight.

Accompanying Bluestreak to Iacon suddenly seemed like a very good idea.

* * *

A/N I always have liked the Sparkling!Prowl thing. And I imagine that a lot of bots would get irritated at Bluestreak for constantly rambling about nonsense stuffs.


	2. Chapter 2

Hey looky! An update! Okay, thanks to everyone who read and reviewed and like this, ya'll are wonderful.

Also, Prowl's name isn't very traditional, in Cybertronian terms. So he'd probably get a lot of grief for it, especially when he was younger.

* * *

"Alright!" Jazz turned towards the small assembly, after having spoken quietly with Mirage for a few moments. "Welcome to Iacon. Ah'm Jazz, and ya'll are very lucky Ah've come along to save ya from some boring speech about duty and honor and all that."

On the other side of Bluestreak, Prowl heard Sideswipe snicker and comment to Bluestreak about the word 'duty.' Prowl didn't understand the comment, but he broke his focus on Jazz to glare at the red mech. How utterly rude of Sideswipe to poke fun at this mech's presentation.

Fortunately, Sideswipe noticed the withering look and grew suddenly very interested in his peds. Of course, this only caused Sunstreaker to snort, but that wasn't relevant to Jazz, so it didn't matter.

Satisfied, Prowl turned his attention back to Jazz. Only, when Prowl looked back, Jazz was looking at him expectantly, as though he had asked Prowl a question. Prowl stared back at Jazz for a few tiks, and when he saw the grin that the visored mech was so obviously holding back, he felt a certain dread rising in his chassis.

Prowl cleared his vocalizer and glanced around to see all other mechs (and femmes, Primmusdamnit!) looking at him also. Oh, how very lovely. He, of all bots on the trip, of all the bots in the entire academy, _he_ had managed to make a fool of himself. In front of a mech as exquisite as Jazz, no less!

He cleared his vocalizer once more and very hesitantly spoke. "Pardon?"

"We're all gettin' to know each otha'. We've got Wires, Barricade, Starlight, and you." Jazz indicated each bot in turn, finishing with a servo gesture towards Prowl, indicating that it was his turn to introduce himself.

So not only did he manage to make a complete and utter fool of himself, but he also got to announce his ridiculous name in front of everyone. Surely, this day could not get worse.

Preparing himself for the certain further humiliation, he spoke. "Prowl."

Yep. It was there. The barely contained laughter from the three bots on the other side of the room. He knew it was coming. Every time he introduced himself to someone new, they always mentioned the fact that his name wasn't normal, or went to extremes to explain that it wasn't a _bad_ name, just unusual. Why couldn't his creators have chosen a name like Monochrome or something? That would have been just fine.

Normally it was Bluestreak who would come to the rescue, diving in and rambling about how lots of bots didn't have normal names, because to be perfectly honest, Prowl didn't know how to defend himself from that. Yet another reason they were so close.

Optics anywhere but directed at Jazz, Prowl waited for him to move on to asking Bluestreak his designation.

But he didn't.

As the contained laughter grew to be not-so-well-contained, Prowl started wishing he could just disappear. Speaking of disappearing, that Mirage had managed to somehow vanish from Prowl's doorwing sensor net without him noticing. Lucky fragger.

After 1 breem and 27 tiks (Prowl knew, he counted), Jazz cleared his vocalizer. It was the kind of vocalizer-clearing that told everyone who was doing something they shouldn't be that they had better stop and focus on the one who had cleared their vocalizer. Prowl's professor used that particular sound almost on a regular basis.

The sound immediately grabbed every bot's attention. Very hesitantly, Prowl looked up at Jazz, who was focused on him. Him. Prowl felt his temperature increase a few tenths of a degree. It would surely rise more if Jazz kept staring at him.

Prowl waited for Jazz to speak. That visor was infuriating. Normally, Prowl could read a mech like a book, because optics are expressive. But because Jazz had his covered, Prowl had no clue what was going on in that processor.

Then a thought struck him. Was he...? No! He couldn't!

A surge of fear caused Prowl's doorwings to quiver unconsciously as he looked into that...deep blue visor...

"That's a very lovely name, Prowl."

Prowl blinked. The melodious voice had snapped him out of his focus on the visor. What had he missed? Something about names...

No! Jazz was going to-

But he hadn't.

He had done something no other adult bot had ever done before. Prowl watched as Jazz let Sunny and Sides introduce themselves. Prowl often got teased and picked on because of his rather unique designation. It certainly wasn't anything like the more traditional names of his classmates. Adult bots tried to help by explaining that names were something to be proud of and the like, but all they ended up doing was isolating Prowl from his fellow students because the effort labeled him as a "teacher's pet." So eventually he isolated himself before the same disaster could do it for him. Bluestreak was the only one who kept talking to him, so Blue became the one Prowl looked to for help when it happened. It didn't happen as often in the mechling academy as it did in the sparkling academy, but a few times was enough.

Jazz had managed to save Prowl from absolute humiliation without doing any damage. Prowl couldn't help but feel slightly awed at what the mech had accomplished with only six words. And Jazz had done it _for him_. The thought made Prowl's spark-and his doorwings-flutter.

"Right, now that we've all gotten to know each other, we're goin' to split into two groups for tours. 'Raj should be back any breem now-" As if on cue, Mirage entered the room. "Oh, good. Mirage and mahself will each lead a group, so divide yo'selves!"

Seeing as the group was pretty much already divided, it was less that a breem before Mirage was leading Barricade and the two femmes out into the hall. Very soon, after a minor shove fest between the twins, Jazz was holding the door open for Prowl's group.

As Prowl shyly smiled and thanked Jazz for holding the door open, his thoughts wandered back to earlier. Surely Jazz had known what would have happened. Maybe he had even experienced it himself. After all, 'Jazz' isn't exactly a traditional designation either.

* * *

Wires and Starlight are just names from the top of my head. I was going to make it Ironhide and Blaster with Barricade, but then I remembered that I'd made such a point to include the femmes, and if I made that point and there weren't any femmes, then it would be pointless. Then I was going to make it Chromia and Arcee, but I don't know if they would laugh or not, so I just came up with two minor OCs. Feel free to use the names if you like them.

Isn't Jazz nice?

1/10-Hey, guys! Sorry about chapter 3. I had it up for a while, but it was bugging the pit out of me, so right now it's down for maintenance. I should have it fixed soon.


End file.
